Lviv Art Gallery

Lviv in western Ukraine is one of the best cities featuring the oldest historical artifacts and cultural relicts. The museums of the Lviv house huge collections of paintings, manuscripts, sculptures and work of graphics etc. There are several museums and art galleries, which highlight the historical background of Lviv and among them one of the best is Lviv Art Gallery.

It is the largest Museum of art in Ukraine featuring a unique collection of painting, sculptures and graphic art of Western and Eastern Europe. Lviv National Art Gallery (previously known as Lviv Art Gallery) is the leading museum in Ukraine. The museum has 60,000 artworks in its collection including the work of Italian, French, German, Austrian and European artists.

Lviv National Art Gallery was founded in 1907 as a Municipal Museum housing the art works of Lojynsky, Ozhehovychand, and Yakovych. In 1940 by the order of the then Soviet Government regarding nationalization of the private properties, the collections of the national museum, Bavorosky and other museums were incorporated in the gallery.

The gallery was known as Lviv Picture Gallery till February 4, 1998. It is the biggest art museum in Ukraine with unique works of painting, sculpture graphics etc. In early 1907, the collection of west European art by I.Yakovych, a Ukrainian sugar magnate was bought through town council. On 14th Feb 1907 the collection of Yakovych’s paintings was moved to Lviv and this date was considered to be the foundation day of the museum.

Lviv Art Gallery features 150 paintings including items like portrait of Saint Jerome by Lucas Gassel, portrait of a woman by Pieter Pietersz and also a number of paintings by Jakob de Backer. The art gallery also possesses two rare battle scenes – one of them is a stupendous work by the famous Flemish Artist Casteels Pauwels. There are also a number of rare paintings by painters from the Dutch Golden age, such as The Storm by Pieter van der Croos, the still life ‘A glass of wine and fruits‘by Jan Jansz van de velde. The German paintings of the Late Gothic style-an image of three saints (Mary Magdalene, Odilia and Clare) also draw a lot of tourist attraction. However, two paintings are considered to be the prized possession of this gallery. The prides of Lviv Art Gallery are “Payment of Dues”, which is a masterly work Georges de La Tour’s and “Portrait of a Man”, which is a priceless creation by Tiziano Vecellio.